Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the quality and quantity of website traffic to a website or a web page from search engines. SEO targets unpaid search traffic (usually referred to as “organic” results) rather than direct traffic, referral traffic, social media traffic, or paid traffic.

Unpaid search engine traffic may originate from a variety of kinds of searches, including image search, video search, academic search, news search, and industry-specific vertical search engines.

As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work, the computer-programmed algorithms that dictate search engine results, what people search for, the actual search queries or keywords typed into search engines, and which search engines are preferred by a target audience. SEO is performed because a website will receive more visitors from a search engine when websites rank higher within a search engine results page (SERP), with the aim of either converting the visitors or building brand awareness.